Mugc
Athlete ponder an alternate career as hosts of Changing Rooms
ATHLETE
Liquid Room. Edinburgh. Mon 13 Oct: Garage. Glasgow, Tue 14 Oct
Right, this is for everyone out there who kicks around town playing in a band and dreaming of the day they get to give their Mercury Music Prize acceptance speech — and the orgy of supermodels and substances that go with it. Brace yourselves. folks, because Athlete keyboard player Tim Wanstall (speaking the day after his band lost out on the Mercury to Dizzee Rascal) is about to give us the full skinny on those wild, wild nights: ‘Well. we did have a few beers and then we went back to our hotel. And we got into a pillow fight with the Thrills, but I couldn't get too drunk because I had to be up early to buy bathroom tiles.‘
Oh dear. Still, that‘s probably the sort of behaviour you'd associate with the modest and unassuming Athlete. who take their cue from such sonic tinkerers as the Flaming Lips and Grandaddy. Yeah, they're not the Darkness. but the album Vehicles and Animals is still a bright collection of optimistic anthems. and a short but significant step from the band's childhood connections in Deptford.
Those footprints are getting larger all the time. though, as Athlete‘s next Scottish gig after this pair is in Glasgow‘s spacious Academy early next year. ‘It feels like we've taken forever to get here.‘ says Wanstall. ‘But we’ve appreciated the slow build over the last year and a half. That's why a Mercury nomination is good, but winning it and being catapulted to artificial fame could be bad — we really do want to be about for the long haul. and the only way you do that is by taking your time.‘ (David Pollock)
EXPOSURE
Adam Freeland. resident at London club Fabric, is stepping out from behind the decks to front a band whose first single, ‘We Want Your Soul‘. has turned the dance fraternity on its head. Here he tells us about putting the band together and taking it on the road.
How was the transition from DJ to band member?
Freeland contemplate the soul
How would you unpack the : ' z“ " ' meaning behind We Want Your . ' -. Soul? The anti-corporate invasion -.' ' : " " 2' ' "
theme of the song has led to you being called the ‘Michael Moore I i of dance music'.
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